Birders report plenty of pelican sightings in Rock River Valley

ROCKFORD — They’re big, they’re white and visible. When Cheri Zweep saw them in the Rock River on Wednesday, she pulled over on Illinois 2 for a closer look.

“My niece was with me,” said Zweep of Winnebago. “She said, ‘My God, those are pelicans!’”

More specifically, they were American white pelicans. And their presence in the center of the state is testimony to a bird species that’s expanding its numbers and range.

Before locks and dams were built on the Mississippi River and its tributaries, and more people settled along lakes and waterways, white pelicans were common.

But a century of development brought pollution and habitat loss.

Eric Tomasovic, biologist with Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge in Thomson, said that 120 years ago the massive white birds with five-foot wingspans and pouches beneath long yellow beaks, were once fairly common in the upper Midwest.

But the birds, which migrated from Mexico and the Gulf Coast through Illinois to lakes in northern Minnesota, Wisconsin and Canada to breed, became uncommon.

Populations of white pelicans were less affected in the Plains states, where they continued to migrate to northern nesting grounds.

Then, two decades ago some migration routes inexplicably moved east, said Tom Clay, executive director of the Illinois Audubon Society in Springfield. And white pelicans began moving through Illinois in greater numbers.

This spring pelicans have been seen throughout the state by birders, who according to ebird.org have reported plenty of sightings of them along the Rock, Illinois and Mississippi rivers and on lakes in the Chicago area.

Clay said a lot of people are caught off guard when they encounter white pelicans, often thought to be a southern coastal bird. They can’t believe it when they see flocks of the birds, like one that appeared on Lake Springfield this year, as they make their way to their to northern breeding grounds.

“People were swerving in their cars, saying what are those birds?” Clay said.

And they’re nesting again in Illinois. Colonies on islands in the Mississippi River between Thomson and Clinton, Iowa, were discovered in 2009.

“I never expected to see pelicans when they hired me to count ducks up here,” said Tomasovic, who grew up in Virginia near Chesapeake Bay. “But they’re expanding to a new range. This is a highly conducive environment for them with plenty of food and a safe place to nest.”

In 2013 he counted 255 nests that produced more than 1,000 young pelicans, he said.